I have been a Slackware user for many years. I absolutely love it. That has not changed. However, I feel that I have changed. Realizing that I'm spending more and more of my time experimenting and tweaking my system rather than using it, I decided that something needed to happen. So I have installed Ubuntu 11.10 on my desktop.
Does this mean that I'm not an advanced Linux user? No, it does not. It just means that I'm tired of spending all day doing complicated things and solving complicated system problems as a systems admin, only to come home and do the same exact thing with my home computers. Just because I'm a power user at work, doesn't mean I can't be afforded some simplicity in my home life. I evaluated several different distros and arrived at Ubuntu because it is known for making things simple. Tasks like installing video drivers that would require some command line effort in most other distros can be done in Ubuntu with a few clicks of the mouse. I honestly don't have to think much, and I appreciate being able not to. It lets me get back to what I should be doing...playing the role of an end-user.
I'm using the default Unity interface on Ubuntu. At first I didn't like it, but it has grown on me. I guess I had better get used to it because it looks like even Windows is going down the road of having a single look for desktop computers, tablets, and phones. Although I like the Unity interface much more than the Metro interface (at least as it appears in the Windows 8 Developer Preview). Of course, I don't own a tablet and my phone runs Android.
The Ubuntu Software Center has also made installing the applications that I commonly use a breeze. I can use it to search for new applications and easily click to install them.
I did make some small tweaks to the LightDM login manager. I wanted it to prompt me for both username and password instead of showing me a list of users to click on. Then I wanted it to enable numlock automatically. I use the number keypad a lot and didn't want the extra step of having to hit the numlock key. Yep, I'm just that lazy.
As far as Unity goes, I haven't made a lot of changes other than adding/removing programs from the launcher. I am a little annoyed, however, that Unity doesn't feature a slideshow-type wallpaper selection. I know there are 3rd party applications that can automatically change my wallpaper for me, but they all have to run in the background in order to function. I used a Python script that I found with a little Google-Fu, which uses the Contest wallpaper and background-1.xml to change the wallpaper (using the wallpaper image path I provided) at a specified interval. However, the script doesn't support scaling the images, so some of my larger wallpaper images don't look right on the screen. I'd love a script or command that will change the wallpaper randomly when given a path with images and for it to also support scaling. Something I could just stick in the cron would be preferred. Maybe something already exists like that and I just haven't found it yet.
All in all, it's been a good experience so far. I was worried, especially with so many people jumping ship from Ubuntu because of disdain for Unity. It is very different from what most of us are used to, but if you spend enough time with it, you'll see that it really isn't all that bad. But I can only imagine that if Linux users, who are typically thought to be more advanced computer users, are this upset over a change like Unity then Windows users are going to hit the roof with anger when Windows 8 gets released with its Metro interface.
Update: I found out how to get the contest wallpaper slideshow to scale the images. I just deleted the "<option>zoom</option>" line from the contest section of /usr/share/gnome-background-properties/ubuntu-wallpapers.xml. After doing that, the option to choose tile, zoom , scale, etc., became available when selecting "Contest" in the wallpaper selection area of the Appearance configuration window.
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